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Donor to Duterte’s war on drugs under probe for graft

BEIJING — A Chinese billionaire who played a central role in the revival of his country’s ties with the Philippines is under investigation by Beijing over corruption allegations.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with Mr Huang Rulun at the opening of a drug rehabilitation centre. Billionaire Mr Huang donated S$110  million to two such centres which cater for around 10,000 patients. Photo: Reuters

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with Mr Huang Rulun at the opening of a drug rehabilitation centre. Billionaire Mr Huang donated S$110  million to two such centres which cater for around 10,000 patients. Photo: Reuters

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BEIJING — A Chinese billionaire who played a central role in the revival of his country’s ties with the Philippines is under investigation by Beijing over corruption allegations.

Mr Huang Rulun, a real estate developer who got his start in Manila’s Chinatown, was feted by President Rodrigo Duterte and poured money into treatment centres for drug users caught up in the Philippine leader’s bloody war on narcotics.

The probe into Mr Huang has cast a cloud over a renewed Sino-Philippine relationship that has shaken up the geopolitics of Asia since Mr Duterte took office a year ago.

The Philippine President has verbally rebuffed Manila’s old ally Washington and courted Beijing, attracting billions of dollars in trade and investment pledges.

Mr Huang was removed late last week from his position in the Fujian province political consultative conference, an advisory body. The anti-corruption watchdog in Beijing announced on June 23 that he was under investigation over bribery allegations.

Born in Fujian province, Mr Huang left China for Manila in the mid-1980s when the Chinese economy was just beginning to open up. Manila’s Binondo or Chinatown district is populated by the Fujianese diaspora, and Mr Huang set up business as a small trader.

He speaks Mandarin with a thick Fujianese accent and comes across as a typical, old-fashioned businessman from southern China, according to a person who has met him. He donated money to schools and to Peking University, reflecting a Confucian emphasis on the education that he himself had lacked.

But Mr Huang also excelled at another traditional skill — the creation of “guanxi”, or relationships. He returned to Fujian province in the 1990s, when the province was a hotbed for trade and investment into China by overseas Chinese.

The party secretary of Fujian during that time was Mr Jia Qinglin, a close ally of former leader Jiang Zemin, who narrowly escaped implication in a notorious smuggling case.

Mr Jia was promoted to Beijing mayor in 1996. Shortly thereafter, Mr Huang also relocated from Fujian to Beijing, winning the right to develop the Golden Resources Shopping mall, briefly the world’s largest by leasable area (its retail footprint is larger than the Pentagon in Washington).

Mr Huang played a visible role in Mr Duterte’s warming ties with Beijing. He met the Philippine leader several times and donated 4 billion Philippine pesos (S$110 million) for two drug rehabilitation centres to serve a total of up to 10,000 patients, according to the Philippine government information agency.

Mr Duterte had come under fire from international human rights groups and President Barack Obama’s United States administration over the killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users by police and unidentified assailants.

At the inauguration of one of the drug rehab centres in November, Mr Duterte said Mr Huang had appeared “out of nowhere and came to my office and said he would help me solve the drug problem”, according to local media reports. Mr Huang described the Philippine leader as an “irresistible force” fighting drug gangs.

Mr Huang also held a meeting in December with the mayor of Cebu, the Philippines’ richest province.

But it appears that Mr Huang’s political capital in China had already played out while he and Mr Duterte were cosying up. In October, Chinese state media named his company as a source of bribes paid to Mr Bai Enpai, party secretary of Yunnan province, in a wide-ranging corruption case.

The Philippine President’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Huang’s case.

Mr Duterte would probably be able to shrug off the questions raised by Mr Huang’s arrest, as he has done with various scandals over the drugs war, said Mr Boo Chanco, a Philippine analyst and newspaper columnist. “Mr Duterte still can do nothing to embarrass himself,” he said.

“The honeymoon is still strong, one year on.” FINANCIAL TIMES

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